A Letter to Mama | Photograph | ABIKU | Poems by Ojo Taiye

A LETTER TO MAMA

tell mama,

i am a body of water

drowning with broken dreams

the face

of an orphan

seashell

whose sun walk into darkness

Photograph

a frozen man smiles each time i enter mother’s bedroom

who he was and how he got there

i don’t know.

i was told, he left for Burma

and for long there wasn’t a hot or cold news about him

his broad jaw strikes me a lot

evincing the man, I was

as a child I thought mama loves photographs

but the frozen man seems to be the only hill she looks to

whenever lovers in the city garden coo

but why would she keep her heart close for a man

whose atlas is no where

ABIKU

This silence howls your name

the name you left to die in my skin

my ribcage now pines

rose flowers

you left with my orb

leaving shreds of

bittersweet pain

pains that talon

ripping through my sky like soot

here I am in Yemoja’s altar

a sorcerer

an enchanter

an owl that flies to be drench by rain

rain that makes night sleepless

that chases old demons for new

ones at dawn

your love for me is witchcraft

you, goddess of sex

you are Abiku:

winds that brings misfortune in

sunshine.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Ojo Taiye is a young Nigerian who uses poetry as a handy tool to hide
his frustration with the society.